Mark Patterson

One of this year’s NSF graduate research fellowship awardees is Sara Williams, a Research Technician at the Marine Science Center and an incoming graduate student in Northeastern’s Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology PhD program.

Top researchers, entre­pre­neurs, scholars, and pol­i­cy­makers from Mass­a­chu­setts and Switzer­land con­vened at North­eastern Uni­ver­sity on Friday for an energy summit, where par­tic­i­pants dis­cussed inno­va­tions and strate­gies to address cli­mate change and a range of other global energy challenges.

For the next two weeks fac­ulty, stu­dents, and staff from North­eastern University’s Urban Coastal Sus­tain­ability Ini­tia­tive and led by pro­fes­sors Mark Pat­terson and Brian Hel­muth are taking part in Mis­sion 31.

Graduate student Amanda Dwyer will lead a research project in conjunction with Mission 31, a monthlong underwater expedition led by Fabien Cousteau, in which she’ll examine the dynamics of zooplankton on coral reefs.

Northeastern researchers will investigate the effects of global change on reef ecology as part of Mission 31, documentary filmmaker Fabien Cousteau’s 31-day underwater expedition off the coast of Florida.

As a teenager, Jen­nifer Elliott read about a con­ser­va­tion project to save the rare endemic birds of her home­land of Mau­ri­tius, a small island located in the Indian Ocean. “I was imme­di­ately intrigued by this project and wanted to meet the sci­en­tists in charge to learn more,” Elliott said. “I wanted to help.”